Quoted from BF_Tanks:

I've started making my own modified version of MPE fixing some of the issues you've raised as well as adding my own flavour to it. You talk about "ASM Edits", what are these?

Sorry it took so long to see this and reply!

ASM stands for Assembly, and is typically the last (desperate) hope for modding any part of a game that the game's own tools and resource file edits can't accomplish. However, modifying a game's compiled code is very time consuming and tedious, which is why anyone who is crazy enough to do this type of work wishes companies would release source code for these old games and make our lives so much easier!

The MP Evolution team probably did a LOT of this type of time consuming work. It can sometimes take weeks or months to achieve what someone could do with the source code in minutes or days. This is why a lot of people turn to creating their own open source versions of game engines because, if you want to make extensive and complex changes or improvements, it's probably faster to write your own game engine from scratch than try to reprogram an existing one without the source code.

If you're not familiar with programming, I'd recommend against considering it. Assembly Language is a headache to work with and I wouldn't suggest it to anyone as the first programming language they learn. HOWEVER, if you're interested, you can read about it over here:

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs216/guides/x86.html

I only recently began to dabble in it a couple years ago, and given the complexity of the work, there's still lots of things I couldn't figure out or do even after spending several months working with it.

Quoted from HellBrick:

I understand how this may be disappointing to hear, but this is the way things are.

I completely understand. I anticipate I'll be playing AoW on and off for the next 20 years of my life at least, and MP Evolution will be a regular part of that for sure. Thanks again so much for all the hard work you put into it!

And thanks a bunch for setting aside a little time to share what you can that might help other modders willing to carry the torch. Even some inefficient source code can be a goldmine for anyone else who might want to do something similar.

I hope you enjoy whatever other adventures life leads you to. Best wishes!

HellBrick wrote:

I'll try to release these things some time this week. .udd files are easy; the code, however, needs to have the dependencies figured out, checked for the sensitive data, etc.

I would be very interested in your information about structs and data formats for AOW2/SM.

Could you please tell, when you release it?

Thank you.

M.

hey. wanted to say that we are 15 players now in my new server in discord. i have created it before few days, soon all my friends will join. we will be 20-30. btw i found many people in other gaming programs (90) hopefuly i'll get 20 of them but still we may not be enough;/. we need more people! join our discord server. The mission is to make tournaments with brackets, 1v1/2v2 ffa 3v3, or whatever but with price money!. the link to my server will be expired in 24 hours so just search in discord "age of wonders sm" https://discord.gg/XkYezm . by the way we are playing MPE of course!. i already have some of the creators of mpe in my server.

[This message has been edited by Protois (edited 10-09-2017 @ 10:08 PM).]

Prize money, not price money

Hi folks, sorry for the delay, my plans were mercilessly crushed by some IRL stuff. But (finally!) here it is:

1. OllyDbg files for MPE game and editor executables. As I vaguely remember encountering some issues with .udd files when switching between versions of OllyDbg, I've included the exact version of the debugger binaries that I used when working on MPE, they should be able to load the .udds without any problems.

2. AowSdk. I've excluded the mod editor, because it proved to be a pain in the ass to figure out the dependencies and doesn't provide much value for the file format research anyway, but the useful part of the SDK is there.

Hope that helps If you have any specific questions regarding the file format or the SDK code base, feel free to raise an issue in the SDK repo and ask them there, as it's very unlikely for me to notice new posts here on the forum.

Thanks so much Hellbrick! Your mod is really the gold standard in this game. It's great to see you around still.

I have so much fun modding the game using Hellbrick's tools - thanks!!

Also there's a living PBEM community over in the GoG forums.

I know that I arrive a bit after the battle, but about those Pioneers/Rebuilders:

the whole idea of splitting Pioneers from Rebuilders was so that the Rebuilders did not suffer the price increase of Pioneers, right?

so to solve the problem of existing scenarios (or even the main campaign, which I would love to play with the MPE bugfixes!) having Pioneers (and not Rebuilders) at the start, it would suffice to give Rebuild structure to Pioneers *in addition to* the Build Outpost ability?

Alternatively, about the price increase for Pioneers: maybe it could be made dependent on the number of owned cities+pioneers+queued pioneers, instead of the number of Pioneers produced? This would restrain outpost-spamming while still allowing empire-rebuilding.

I will try my hand at the tools uploaded by HellBrick. And to you HellBrick: spassiba bolchoļ!

[This message has been edited by Circonflexe (edited 02-07-2018 @ 04:16 AM).]

Anyone still modding? I'm wondering if there's a way I can rename spells, I figure I have to edit the PFS files, but there's no editor for that and Hex Editing is probably not what I want to look for.

http://aow2.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=1076

Here's a download with several modding tools, including one for editing game text - the MLDedit one.

I'm not the greatest expert, but PFS files don't handle everything, much of the text is handled by the mld files in the Dict folder, especially ResStr.MLD

Don't mod the Native column in MLDedit, IIRC that causes issues. Mod the (initially empty) English column.

And yes, I'm modding! Using MPE mod's engine and editors as baseline. I've already found about 50 unit graphics which I'm going to insert, 3 for each race as trainable units (I stole almost all from other mods, but some are my own recolourings). Will also fundamentally rebalance parts of the game like upkeep per level formula, general unit balance (DAM is much lower to make Gold Medal and some enchants more valuable, ATK is mostly much higher than DEF so that combat is less RNG and lower level troops can contribute more, etc).

[This message has been edited by Ziggurat Mason (edited 07-18-2018 @ 10:42 AM).]

These weeks I was reading every post here about MPE and now I'm editing many things using Mod Editor, because I discovered it lately. I know it's pretty late but I never had anyone to show me this place those days and I didn't have any friend playing AoW:SM to about 2011. It's pretty great to see so many people interested in this mod that time, HellBrick helping so much, being pretty active and helpful. That's a shame they stopped, because I'm still hungry for some changes and I have so many ideas. Unfortunately I'm not programmer and I can't do anything beside using available editors and I have no experience here. I think there are some little issues making MPE less great than it could really be. I know it's been a long time but I still hope someone will see my post and will be that kind to help me.

1. I have problem with changing race's machines. For example I'd like to exchange some Repeater balistas with Cannons or Frost/Flame Cannons for some races. How I could do that in MPE 2.0.4.209?
_{(I found a solution, just in game editor as well.)}

2. Another question is how can I change default AI wizard's skills? I changed some skill points and now some wizards are using too many skill points (mainly because of changing Technophobe from -6 to -4 points) and that would be a little cheatty choosing them by players. I tried to do it in Map Editor but didn't work.
_{(I already found a way to do that with MPE editor. I just had to reinstall it because before that I couldn't see any units or wizards there but sharps or empty spots.)}

3. Is it possible to remove Drill machine (never seen anyone producing or using it for 8 years) and put Watch Builder back or give Rebuilders ability called 'build watchtower'?

4. Is it possible to make to produce some unit in Sanctuary. That would be great to make some higher priests or something like that.
_{(I guess it's possible only in temple but maybe there is some way.)}

5. I really loved colorful look of the spell book from some version of MPE but with the new version it was gone (I see many players didn't like it). And here I found '145 Spell Icons' app making it colorful again. Is it save to install it on the newest version of MPE (2.0.4.209)?

6. Is it still possible to repair wall bug problem with some units (without flying/pass wall/wall climbing) sometimes passing the walls like there is nothing in some hexes?

7. Is there any way to remove technophobe skill prohibiting Shrine of Order? In my version of MP Evolution it's not necessary and I'd like to remove it. Also I'd like to add Illiterate skill prohibiting Shrine of Magic maybe.



And I just wanna let everyone know that there are people still playing AoW:SM and MPE as well on discord. We have a group called AoW:SM. Link here:
https://discord.gg/NScATeh

Any suggestions about changing MPE in Mod Editor will be considered. I hope more players will join (now there are 18 people). Everyone is welcome!

Greetings,
Finrod

[This message has been edited by Finrod Tinuviel (edited 08-22-2020 @ 07:49 AM).]

1.) Changing what races have as recruit options is done through the map editor, not the mod editor. After opening map editor you go through Resources>Edit>Settings>Races

There you can edit what each race recruits from each building - however, most buildings can't be granted the ability to recruit troops. You can only add recruitable troops the the Temple Complex and to the various buildings that already provide recruitable troops.

In my mod I made normal priests trainable from the Temple Complex, higher level priest-mages / magicians trainable from the Monastery. I made the monastery much more expensive to compensate for this.

Thanks for the discord link.

Hello everyone!

Since summer of 2019 I'm testing my modification for MP Evolution and it's pretty damn good. Multiplayer games are hilariuos now and after all these years it still gives so much satisfaction. I called it MP Evolution 2.0.5 by sketch but now I'm still finding some ideas and small things that I would apply or change a little bit, so it's going to be version 2.0.5.001 soon.

All the 2.0.5 changes you can find here and please let me know what do you think about it:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oIrIndDWPns0idY6xW5iQY-LvhmyzGHp


And here are my next questions:

8. Is it possible to add a charge abillity to a spell called haste? I think it's a very good idea, but I just have no clue how do to that.

9. Is it possible to make units with healing abbility to heal themselfs?


And thanks for everyone who already joined our Discord group. Now there are almost 30 members.

[This message has been edited by Finrod Tinuviel (edited 12-26-2019 @ 09:02 AM).]

I imported all objects from UPatch 1.5 into MPE. It became even save compitible with UPatch 1.5 saves.

Both Upatch 1.5 and MP Evolution should be installed.
Replace files in MPE Resource directory (C:\Users\Public\Documents\Age of Wonders - MP Evolution 2\Mods) with files from the archive.

Fixed bugs:
- Zephyr Bird disappearing
- Mastery Spells
- Ranger hero sound crash fixed
- Goblin City screen hang
- Ghost is Undead now
- Chaos node converted to missing graphics

Download

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 04-08-2020 @ 02:00 AM).]

Hello!

Here's an update of MP Evolution 2.0.5 - now it's called MP Evolution 2.0.5.002 by Finrod. I made more changes making every single race more special and pretty balanced. Also abillity masking has been improved. Multi player tests went very well, so now I'm very proud to give you a changelog link below and invite you to our Discord group, having more than 40 members already.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KCDETEJ9uRWlKuEa4Yyoaot32jPIH4-4

[This message has been edited by Finrod Tinuviel (edited 04-25-2020 @ 06:01 AM).]

More of Upatch 1.5 bugs fixed:
- Underground passage invisibility fixed
- Evil/sacred woods, spider curse, poison plants spells fixed
- Healing site and other disapperances fixed


Please re-download

For the pro editors out there using MPE:
How do you edit:

Heroes --> Resources --> Abilities
AND:
Wizards --> Resources --> Abilities

You can't get at the abilities from either "Mod editor" or "MP Evolution editor"? I tried to copy the "MPE 2.0.4.209" folder to the regular game resource folder and use the standard editor, but that didn't work either. I know you have to use the Mod editor for Units, but you can't edit Heroes or Wizards this way.

The objective it to add "fixed" abilities to either.

Thanks!

You should copy-paste them to standard editor and edit them there, then copy-paste them back.

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 01-14-2021 @ 00:32 AM).]

Thanks Triadasoul_7, but trying to use standard editor with MPE data does not work with abilities.

Besides starting from scratch and then converting to MPE (yikes!) is to zero-out the abilities to give you more points to play with if you want to add a "fixed" ability pseudo-like. Note: this means editing from the "library" tab and not "resources" tab [the latter being where you add "fixed" abilities to heroes and wizards].

I wanted to add flying to Draconian heroes for starters as example.

I figure MPE is a done deal, so time to make my final mod

*Edit* Solved! You have to got into the MPE Editor and change all the abilities asUnit from False to True [only those that can be logically added to units, wizards, and heroes of course].

[This message has been edited by solar_one (edited 01-26-2021 @ 05:27 PM).]

*Edit* Solved! You have to got into the MPE Editor and change all the abilities asUnit from False to True [only those that can be logically added to units, wizards, and heroes of course].

If you edit heroes as units it may cause many problems later (broken alligment for heroes, and some appearing non-assigned abilities).

If you copy-paste hero body to standard editor - abilities are editable. (I made more than 100 already that way). For ex. yes it's not possible to add Block V , but at least it's possible to add standard block.

BTW, join the discord AoW community, It's easier to post screenshots there, and we could join our effort:

discord1
discord2

Thanks Triadasoul_7

It's a bit convoluted, but thanks for the tip. Do note that when you update the asUnit to True the "Mod editor" reverts it back to False, so [almost] back to square one {grr}.

I've added account to discord to check out -- cool that there are a still a handful [literally] of people modding this ol' game

Hello everybody,
having issue with this patch almost every my game get broken because enemy try to migrate their own cities for example in Athendore dwarves try to migrate dwarves to elves/archon etc as result all their armys get terrible morale and go on raid mode destryoing mine and their stuff.Can you turn that racial expulsion off somehow ?